Months blurred into a relentless cycle of mental and physical exertion. The crisp mornings of early spring had given way to the languid warmth of summer, then the golden hues of autumn, and now, the biting chill of approaching winter. Elias, now several months older and approaching his fourth birthday, moved with a newfound, if still clumsy, coordination. His mind, once a chaotic jumble of two worlds, had learned a semblance of discipline, at least when Aina's piercing gaze was upon him. He could now, with moderate control, manipulate his Flow.
Aina had also taught him how to circulate anti-Flow, so he was able to alternate between the two.
Often, during his morning meditations in the garden, a gentle breeze of Flow would swirl around him, making the grass rustle as it blew, a visible testament to his progress, a faint, almost imperceptible hum accompanying its movement. His Flow didn't manifest in the conventional clockwise or anti-clockwise manner. He'd discovered that while meditating on his own. He'd made it a point to do so every evening before bed. He found out that the Flow—his Flow—twisted around him in the shape of the infinity symbol. Not completely Flow, but not exactly anti-Flow either. It was a mixture of both.
He could make it spin fully clockwise or its inverse and recently had practiced making the two energies manifest, though this could be as dangerous as mixing heat and cold in a plastic container, causing it to melt. Still, he managed to pull it off, maybe a little too smoothly because of his unconventional Flow. Aina would watch, a subtle, almost imperceptible nod of approval, a flicker in her usually impassive eyes, acknowledging his aptitude.
But the era of purely mental Flow training was over.
One crisp morning, Aina stood before him, her posture as rigid as ever, her maid uniform impeccable against the backdrop of the frost-kissed garden.
"Your internal Flow is developing, Elias," she stated, her voice devoid of inflection. "But a strong spirit cannot exist within a weak vessel. Your body must be equally unyielding."
Elias groaned internally. He knew what this meant. He had seen the training routines of knights and soldiers of their lands. Besides, the web novels and comics he'd read always had some cliché training arc for the main character. Elias scoffed and smirked.
'Main character? Who am I kidding? I'm just learning as much as I can so I can off myself and be strong enough to punch that bastard in the face.'
He glanced at Aina, who was watching him with her usual deadpan expression. The smirk vanished from his face.
'Can't say this will be the best experience, but...'
With Aina as his tutor, he knew it would be ten times worse than in those books.
Exaggeration? Who knows. But it wasn't going to be as simple as meditating.
"Your Trait Sigil is still vague," Aina continued, her gaze piercing.
"You do not yet have a clearly defined, externally manifestable Trait. I don't know, your rebellious and nagging nature should count as personality enough to get your trait, but...." She shrugged.
"You still have the brain of a pea. Both figuratively and physically, you are underdeveloped. Are all toddlers like this? I'm starting to suspect you have stunted growth. I think they're feeding you too much."
Elias just watched her, holding himself back from retorting.
'Does she have to be so mean? And how does eating too much cause stunted growth?'
"Anyway, you must compensate for your lack of a trait by building a strong vessel. Flow cannot be truly wielded by a weak body, Elias. Your vessel must be as unyielding as your spirit."
And so, the torture began.
For a three-year-old, the physical regime was nothing short of agonizing. Morning jogs, not short sprints, but sustained, seemingly endless loops around the sprawling manor grounds, left his small lungs burning and his legs aching with a deep, pervasive throb. He'd stumble, fall, and pick himself up, his knees and palms perpetually scraped, the grit of the path a constant companion. Every breath was a gasp, every step a monumental effort. He felt like a tiny, unwilling automaton, forced to push beyond what his small frame could possibly endure.
Bodyweight exercises – modified push-ups that felt like lifting mountains, squats that made his tiny thighs tremble uncontrollably, planks that stretched his endurance to breaking point – were repeated in endless sets. This was made even more tedious by Aina who decided to show her 'generosity' by tampering the weights with gravity and amplifying them by two. His muscles screamed, a fiery protest that seemed to echo in his very bones.
Agility drills, simple dodging and quick directional changes, were clumsy affairs, often ending with him tripping over his own feet, landing with a jarring thud that sent shockwaves through his small frame. Aina would turn things up by launching black balls made of metallic dust at him while he moved. They didn't wound him... much, but they hurt a lot. She charged them with electricity to give a 'moderate' shock on impact. There was also the occasional burst of... verbal 'encouragement' as well as previews of what would happen if he didn't meet that day's quota to keep him... 'motivated'.
This wasn't training; it was a relentless, soul-crushing grind for a child his age, a constant reminder of his physical limitations and the unyielding will of his tutor.
However, he made progress. Aina introduced the concept of channeling Flow directly into his physical body, making his limbs, bones, and skin temporarily more durable for as long as the energy infusion lasted. This was a bit more difficult to learn as it required precision. Elias, of course, struggled.
He'd try to infuse his arm, only for the Flow to disperse, leaving it vulnerable. Aina, ever vigilant, would then deliver a sharp, corrective smack to the un-reinforced limb. The sting was immediate, a sharp, burning pain that made him wince.
"Focus, Elias! Do it properly!" she'd command, her voice devoid of sympathy, forcing him to concentrate. It was a brutal, effective lesson in precision and control.
The constant aches, the burning muscles, the sting of Aina's corrective smacks – it all fueled a deep, simmering resentment within Elias. He was immortal, yes, but he felt every single blow, every scrape, every agonizing stretch.
The paradox was a cruel, unending joke.
'Damn you, Deus! You gave me this cursed immortality but no pain resistance?! What good is it if I still feel everything?!'
He'd tried testing the limits of his state a month ago. One afternoon, during a rare moment of unsupervised play in the courtyard, he "accidentally" stumbled off a low, first-floor balcony, tumbling unknowingly into a thorny rose bush below. The thorns pricked, sharp needles digging into his skin, the impact jarring every bone, and a sharp, searing pain shot through him, making him gasp.
"Oh, good heavens! Young Master Elias!"
Miss Gable, one of the manor's older, perpetually worried maids, rushed over, her face a mask of distress, her hands fluttering with concern. She fussed over him, apologizing profusely, pulling him gently from the bush, her voice a torrent of anxious murmurs. Elias felt the lingering ache of the thorns, the dull throb from the fall, with a few scratches. Miss Gable's apologies and distress didn't alleviate the pain. But he apologized, saying it was his own fault for overplaying. The thing about that situation is that he fell on his head. Or he thought he did, but aside from the throbbing, nothing. He decided to hold off experimenting with killing himself until he was older and rather learn more about Flow.
Later, Aina taught him how to heal these minor injuries.
"Channel Flow to the affected area," she instructed, her voice calm as she demonstrated on a small cut on her own hand.
"Stimulate the cells. 'AccelerateRegeneration'."
It was another form of external Flow application, a practical use for the energy he was learning to control. Elias would intentionally trip and fall then diligently apply Flow to his bruises and scratches, watching, fascinated and frustrated, as the skin knitted together at an unnaturally fast rate, the pain receding, leaving no trace except memory. He still felt the residual sting, but the swift recovery only highlighted the futility of his attempts to truly harm himself.
Aina observed his "clumsiness" with a keen eye. She noted the speed with which his skin closed, the lack of lasting marks despite his frequent tumbles. Still, she thought nothing of it other than the fact that he was progressing with the circulation of Flow, so minor scratches were healing on their own almost instantly. She was, however, displeased by his seeming lack of bodily coordination. She often gave him a piercing look after an incident, making him squirm under her cold gaze.
At the end of each exhausting day, Elias would retreat to his room, his small body aching, his mind a whirlwind of frustration and questions. He would pull out his hidden journal, the one where he meticulously recorded his Flow progress, Aina's infuriating lessons, and his plans and theories to break his own immortality.
His small, cramped handwriting filled the pages:
'Day 127 of Torture. Aina is relentless. My legs burn. My arms ache. She smacked me again for not reinforcing my shoulder properly. It hurt. It always hurts. Still, it wasn't that bad, at least I'm learning.
Aina showed me how to push Flow into wounds to make them heal faster, so now I'm reaching the point where I can instantly heal smaller wounds and scrapes. It's going to defeat the purpose of my agenda, but it's kinda cool to be able to do.'
He paused, chewing on the end of his quill, his brow furrowed. He flipped back through earlier entries, pages filled with diagrams of Flow symbols, notes on the Spirit-Domain, and then, deeper, more abstract musings he'd created as he found similarities between this world's laws and the laws of Earth, as well as ways to link them and applications of Flow in order to recreate modern technology. He'd of course written them in English to serve as a form of encryption. He'd also written it because English was the most common language back on Earth, so in case anyone else from there was here....
Elias scoffed.
'Yeah right, chances of that happening.'
Within the pages of his journal were also questions he couldn't voice, even to himself, except in the privacy of these pages, lest someone was listening.
Questions about his reincarnation.
Questions about The World.